A New World Network
by Luke Danger
Summary: Two weeks after PP, the world is still left wondering what to do with the network established to save the planet. Do they maintain and modify it got greater use by humanity as a whole, remove it, or perhaps use it against the threat of ghosts that is now becoming a more widespread problem? And in the middle of it all, Danny must deal with the ramifications of his revealed secret.
1. Chapter 1

**Clockwork's Lair**

**Ghost Zone**

All was right in the time stream. Earth had been saved, and with it the Ghost Zone, with everyone busy returning to normal life. Humanity was busying themselves with cleaning up the aftermath and dealing with the fact that ghosts, once considered an odd paranormal incident to the world, was now a byword of the day as what little masquerade remained was shattered. The Ghost Zone also spent time rebuilding, getting things in order since a brief absence and the actions of a certain almost-fifteen year old individual trying to allow such saving to happen. And now everyone was busy trying to return to normal in spite of a broken masquerade.

_And yet, it was the actions of that same boy who broke a masquerade and united a world, however briefly, to a common cause._ Clockwork mused as he glided into the rafters of his lair on the proverbial edge of the Ghost Zone, changing from his adult form to baby form. Quiet, obscure, and few if any ghosts had traveled to his domain as he observed all the paths time could take. He focused windows in the rafters to different time periods, the windows swirling with color before becoming clear. "So, young Phantom," Clockwork asked himself rhetorically as he shifted into the form of an old man, "What paths may you take, now that your true self is known? What twists and turns could the parade of time take?" He knew the answers, but he liked to look at it himself with these windows into time.

Some windows showed a hero, one matured by experience and tendered by love. Others showed him a caring father, though who the children were (or if it was a certain 'cousin' adopted under his wing) was known to him yet not shown. Some stories showed a leader, while others showed a loner. Paths branched, branched again, and intertwined at countless junctions. Clockwork grimaced as he saw a familiar timeline in new context in one of the windows, yet one even more terrifying in other ways. Other paths showed him scarred by wars, others where he acted as a force of peace. And some showed him rising up to a new duty, one similar to his old but wider in range, a course Clockwork knew was best for all time. Like all, there were many paths Danny Fenton/Phantom could take, but unlike others he was in a position to drastically change the routes open to the parade.

Clockwork closed the windows into time and floated down, his form shifting back to adult as he sensed a familiar pair of presences approaching his lair, presences who could not understand the vast choices of time. As he reached the ground level, two beings faded into view, identical in all but their voices. Beings who were essentially eyes with a green body wearing white robes and spoke through their natural ghost powers. "Clockwork," the first Observant said, "You are becoming lax in your duties to time."

"Oh? And what breach of the Observant laws have I committed this time?" he asked, floating around them slowly as he again shifted to an infant form. "Acting with non-temporal abilities in the time stream at behest of a friend? Please, while you refused to act in such a dire time, hiding behind your white walls while allowing all others to die for one man's greed, I do not need my knowledge of time to know that that is well within the protocols of temporal displacement, particularly as no displacement occurred."

"No, Clockwork," the second Observant stated, "The fate of the future Phantom which you refused to destroy."

"Ah," the ancient ghost of time said with mock surprise in his voice as he shifted to adult form and floated towards the containment chamber. Behind a green energy shield and shackled in glowing green chains was a strong ghost, a strong phantom. Blue skin, sturdy musculature, and white flaming hair, the distinct trademarks of this deviant ex-hybrid, one all too familiar to Clockwork and the phantom that all were speaking of on Earth, and one of the areas where it was his duty to merge time. "Yes... Dan Phantom. I know what 'violation' you speak of. Allowing him to assimilate into this time stream."

"He is too dangerous," the second Observant said, "You must destroy him now."

"Should he become free, Clockwork, the Observant High Council will not take this lightly." The first Observant added threateningly.

"And what shall you do to me?" Clockwork asked as he shifted to infant form. "Shackle me as a common ghost and try me before your council? Please, we both know that such sentencing is already pushing the limit of your oaths, nor would you be able to do so. The _actions_ you would need to take to bring me to heel?"

"Be reasonable," the first Observant begged, "You cannot allow this foreign matter of the time stream free. He exists outside of time. The ramifications..."

Clockwork shifted into an old man and cut the Observant off, "The ramifications would be no different in effect on the time stream then the creation of half ghosts has already had. No different than the interaction between Ghost Zone and Earth, one which has implications we all foresaw and shall soon become obvious."

"Such as this so-called GCN that the humans are adapting?" the second Observant queried as an image of the network built to save the Earth so short a time ago showed in one of the screens on the ground floor. "You speak of implications, though I suspect that this GCN is one of the lesser impacts you fear... or know of." There was a paused, then the Observant added, "And why you spend so much of your time focusing on that boy."

Clockwork smiled as he shifted into adult form. "At least one of you is learning."

XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

XXXX

**Chapter One**

**Casper High; Amity Park**

Danny Fenton smiled faintly as he got his lunch from the cafeteria ladies and went to sit down. Gone were the days when he would fear the jocks bullying him on the way to a table, of having to watch out for hidden tripping. Gone was the threat of being shoved into a locker over a slight. Gone were the days of being beaten on because someone got a bad grade and needed a punching bag. Gone were the days of being the rejected one...

... and as he saw Paulina and all the fan girls gathering along the edges of various tables, he suddenly wondered if revealing his identity to the world was the wise choice. In the past, the fans swarming after Danny _Phantom_ could be evaded by simply shifting back to Fenton form and allowing a loser's reputation to be put to good use. Now, they wanted Fenton too and would not let him go. He saw Tucker and Sam sitting towards the far end of the cafeteria and picked up the pace to get there before he got swarmed again. Theoretically, he could avoid them with intangibility and invisibility, but Lancer had been pretty clear about using his powers on school grounds when the place was not actually under attack. Danny was pretty sure Lancer meant well with the quick patch to the school rules; it was a way to keep things somewhat fair and likely to also make sure he did not go too high into the sky from the sudden popularity, particularly in light of how he acted during the beauty pageant where he ended up as judge. It still made his life a lot harder, though, especially with his newfound popularity that he knew was not temporary in nature.

"So," Sam said as Danny took a seat next to her, Tucker sitting across from the two, "the popularity gone to your head yet?"

Danny raised an eyebrow. "What? It's only been two weeks and I'm already mainstream?" Grinning as he reached for his fork, he continued. "Besides, I think they've all realized that I'm not interested in them."

Tucker spoke between bites from his cheeseburger, "Dash is pretty annoyed that they're all after you now."

Sam scowled at him, "Well, if they want to be a herd of sheep fawning over a boy and ditching individuality in favor of his attention, let them."

Danny smirked at her as he swallowed. "So, what does that make us then?"

She paused, raising an eyebrow in confusion before coughing in an attempt to stop a laugh. "Okay, you got me there, but I'm still me. I'm not changing who I am just to get a date, am I?"

"Nope," Tucker said with a smirk, "But then again, you got years... OW!" A misaimed football had hit Tucker in the head, cutting him off. Danny turned and noticed Kwan hurrying over and he swore that the football player had a hint of... was that fear? _Well, I suppose finding out the loser you used to pick on was the badass you admired has to break a few bowels, even those as indestructible as his._ Danny mused as the jock reached the table.

"I... uh, sorry, Tucker." Kwan glanced nervously at Danny briefly.

The technogeek shook his head as he looked at the football and tossed it back. "Thanks for apologizing."

"Yeah, accidents happen." Danny chimed in, hoping to clear whatever was freaking Kwan out. It seemed to work as Kwan visibly relaxed and nodded to them before walking off. Once Kwan was out of earshot, Danny asked: "So what's with him? He looked like he was ready to use the bathroom."

"He's afraid of payback," a woman two years Danny's senior said as she put her lunch tray on the table next to Tucker. "Learning that your victim was a lot more powerful than you could ever hope to be, especially when you had shoved him into a locker a day prior? It's pretty basic psychology."

Danny raised an eyebrow towards his sister. "I thought you didn't see that, Jazz."

"Nah," she answered, "I overheard Dash talking about it. I don't think they realized how long you've had your powers, Danny."

Sam cut in after swallowing. "Though I'm sure it does answer a lot of questions they had about where you kept disappearing to, like that time you lead the school in boarding Youngblood's ship, or when Dash tried to be a hero to a bunch of girls who wanted to claw your eyes out when you were in the bathroom..."

"Wait, you knew about that?" Tucker asked in confusion as Danny snickered, imagining the looks on everyone's faces as they wondered how he could pull a Houdini so easily. Especially since the boy's bathroom had no access to the air vents large enough for a second grader. He had not considered the hilarity that would ensue, being focused on trying to find and rescue Sam at the time, but when he had time to he really wished he had left a camera to record it.

"Yup," Sam smirked, "There was a pretty big pool on how you pulled it off. No one won, though, and I didn't bet on it since it would of been a pretty big clue."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Danny answered. "But seriously, I'm surprised it took people so long to figure it out. Okay, Dash is a total moron and Valerie could hardly believe the idea of human-ghost hybrids with Danielle, but come on. I didn't exactly hide it well, did I?"

"Well, I needed to see you transform to figure it out." Jazz pointed out. "You tend to give off a completely different persona when you go ghost."

Danny was about to take another bite when his insides chilled and a small wisp of blue breath came out of his mouth. "Speaking of going ghost..." He pushed himself up and turned to see a certain suit of powered up armor hurtling towards the windows. The suit fired several blue bolts at the edges of the windows, which fell outwards as students began screaming in terror. Danny leapt up onto a seat to get a better look as Skulker hovered at the window.

"I told you that you would be a far more valuable prize now that you are a world hero," the cybertronic armored ghost said menacingly as he aimed a wrist blaster at him, "And now that you no longer have a secret identity, I don't have to herd you out of the way to get a good hunt."

"Yep. That's an attack. Going ghost!" Danny shouted as he began shifting his form, white rings appearing around him and spreading from his waist to his head and feet, transforming the human body of flesh and bone to his ghostly form of ectoplasm and an iconic black jumpsuit. Now able to use his powers in full, Danny created a shield of green energy to block Skulker's barrage of energy blasts and reflect them away from the students now hurrying out of the way and sprang forward, his legs disappearing into an indistinguishable tail as he flew towards the hunter and crashed into him, knocking him into the pavement.

"So, how does it feel, ghost boy?" Skulker asked as he punched Danny in the waist with his right hand and knocked him towards the football field. "How does it feel to be the target of many hunts?"

"Wait, I've never been a target before?" Danny retorted, the faint echo his ghost form caused reverberating in every word as he landed and charged a bolt of plasma, firing it out of both hands at Skulker and blasting one of the hunter's jetpack wings away. "Ca'mon, you were one of my first opponents and I was always picked on. I've always been hunted- OOF!" He had taken a rocket to the chest and was blown into the air as Skulker activated a pair of jet boots and soared after him, smashing into him with an uppercut before grabbing Danny's throat.

"Not a hunt to kill or humiliate, a hunt of love. Of making that perfect shot of a million to one..." He never got to finish as Danny focused his cryokinetic powers around his throat and froze Skulker's armor before smashing the right hand and decking Skulker across the face.

"Yeah, well, I already have a girlfriend."

"Wait, wait, time out." Skulker said as he held his hands (or rather, left hand and sparking remains of right hand) out. "I can't believe this."

"What, that I have a girlfriend? Everyone said it was obvious." He asked, raising his eyebrows in disappointment that Skulker had the exact same reaction he had to learning Ember was dating Skulker.

"Well, yeah. You and the Goth girl." Skulker said, "I just can't believe that you finally did it."

"Okay, you got me there. Now, for the reenactment..." Danny brought his fist around, charged with another bolt of plasma and shot it at Skulker's head. The cybernetic ghost tumbled down as Danny pursued him to the ground, muttering to himself as he flew. "I might be bigger prey, but he still can't recover from any..." Then he noticed the armor self repairing, the broken jet pack wing fixing itself and activating in time to move Skulker out of the way. "... wounds." Danny finished before realizing that he was still hurtling with inhuman speed towards the field and crashed head first into it. Disoriented as he pushed himself up and glad that he could not break his neck in Phantom form, he noticed a large green blade extending itself in front of his neck. "Oh... great."

"Game over, whelp," Skulker said when a pink energy blast stuck him in the face and blew him backwards. Danny turned to see a familiar black and red jet sled and the woman riding it.

"Valerie; dad hasn't taken the new suit yet, huh?" Danny asked with a grin. "I thought he hated you flying."

"Well, someone's gotta protect the school. Besides, I think this'll be a much shorter run-in than when we had the flour packet."

XXX

Skulker grunted as he rolled backwards from his landing. "So, the ghost boy and the huntress... working together again." He glanced down at his right arm as the self repair mechanism finally finished fixing it and grinned. "Excellent, two prey in one hunt and vengeance for humiliation." He activated the glowing wrist blade in his left hand and his blaster in his right hand and leapt out of cover, firing the blaster towards the huntress while leaping at Phantom. The two turned from their witty banter and dodged to the side as Skulker impaled his blade into the ground where Phantom had been a moment ago before he flew into the air. Skulker turned the blaster to fire at him as the ghost boy began to glow a whitish blue.

"You know the freezing point of metal?!" Phantom shouted at him as icy blue bolts of energy shot from his hands and froze Skulker's armor together. Struggling to turn the suit intangible while freezing himself as his deeply connected suit suffered from the sudden drop in temperature...

_**WHAM**_

He was caught off guard when the hover sled crashed into him, the board's opening around his neck like his head was on the guillotine, bits of ice flying past as the crash and high speed of friction melted it away.

"I think it was a serious question," the huntress said, "He failed the last physics test pretty badly." Skulker was about to retort when the suit shot full of electricity as the hover sled glowed an electric red before he fell out of it and crash landed just outside of the sports field. Pushing himself up and rubbing his head, he heard something charged and turned, wondering who it was this time.

"Oh great. The ghost boy's human helpers." Skulker muttered angrily as he saw the ghost boy's sister and two friends facing him. The male friend was aiming his PDA at him threateningly while the two girls had thermoses aimed at him. Anyone else doing so would be laughable, but with _these_ humans... Skulker activated the jets in his boots and sprang towards them when his armor suddenly stopped functioning, much to the male human's amusement. "Oh COME ON!" Skulker shouted angrily as he was locked out of the system. _I thought I got rid of all wireless connections, even my link to Hunters dot Net!_ Skulker thought angrily as he prepared to eject from the suit as the two thermoses began activating. Springing out of the suit as the small blob of ectoplasm he really was, Skulker was just in time for them to activate and catch both him and his suit. "NO!" he shouted as his suit went into the thermos held by the ghost boy's girlfriend and his actual form being sucked into the thermos held by his sister. _At least I'm small enough to actually fit,_ he decided glumly as he was sucked inside and the thermos was capped.

XXX

"How did you know about my grades?" Danny asked as the two white rings passed around his body and he was once again visibly human. Valerie had likewise changed with her armor fading to wherever Technus had designed it to store itself when not in use. They had landed right outside the football field where Jazz, Sam, and Tucker were holding the two Fenton Thermoses and had seen them capture Skulker.

"I... uh," Valerie coughed into her hand. "We're in the same physics class, remember? Everyone failed that one badly from the whole Disasteroid scare."

He pursed his lips briefly before shrugging and answering in his normal voice again. "Good point. Alright, which Thermos has Skulker in it?"

"I think he got separated from his armor at some point," Sam said as Jazz gave him the Thermos she was holding, "Because I got his armor in this one."

Danny grinned, "Good. When we put Skulker back in the Ghost Zone, we can keep the set of armor to slow him down. Hmmm, hey, Valerie, think your dad would like researching Skulker's armor?"

"He doesn't do research, remember? He just guards it." Valerie folded her arms with a slight frown. "But yeah, I think the pencil necks he guards might appreciate it. Axion Labs has been doing some ghost investigation work for APPD. I think they're hoping to start arming cops with better anti-ghost materials so they aren't dependent on you, just in case you're busy elsewhere, and they've been into the ghost business for a few months anyways."

"So that's why they were giving me so much trouble about a research budget." Tucker said with folded arms.

"Heh, yeah. Well, guess they'll have something better to argue with now, won't they?" Danny pointed out as Sam handed the Thermos to Valerie. "Mayoral duties can be rough, eh?"

"Uh, Danny. I'm not mayor anymore, remember?"

"Huh?" Danny asked with a confused frown, "I thought they made you one as a matter of _'Meh, he's a friend of Phantom's anyways'_ or some such nonsense that really wasn't a compliment to you." He paused a beat, "Not saying that it was wrong since you did pretty much plan out the network, but the motivation wasn't one I'd use to put you up."

Jazz and Sam facepalmed as Tucker explained, "Yeah, but that was essentially for the ceremony only because Vlad had kinda displaced a lot of the mayor's normal emergency and non-emergency successors who would do something like that. They haven't voted in a new one, so nominally I still am, but I don't really do anything." The technogeek smirked and pulled at his backpack straps self-importantly, "Besides, I can always get a real landslide victory when I'm older."

"Wow." Danny said in surprise. "I thought you were going to stick with that gig since someone listened to you. I gotta know though: why?"

"I'd rather get people to listen to me in a landslide victory than just being thrown into a filler role. You don't command true respect when it's arbitrary, everyone just listens because they have to. Besides, Lancer made it clear I'd still be marked tardy even if I tried to keep the job and an emergency happened." Tucker shrugged. "Guess he still doesn't cut us a lot of slack."

"I guess he's just trying to be fair, the norm here is vastly different than what's normal elsewhere." Valerie cut in, "Now, we should probably get back into the cafeteria before Lancer has us hanging from the field goals for skipping."

XXX

**Three Hours Later**

It turned out that Lancer decided not to give them detentions for 'skipping' lunch. Not getting a chance to really eat was enough of a punishment in his mind, especially in light of the fact they had kept Skulker away from the rest of the student body, nobody had been hurt, and other than the windows property damage was trivial and within the range of normal school maintenance. Unfortunately, the fan girls were waiting for Danny to come out with a patience that Skulker would kill, and probably has killed, to have.

"On the upside," Danny said as he glanced out the window through the school doors and stepped behind them, habitually moving from outside view. "Its three o' clock, the bell has rung, and school is over, which means..." Two passing white rings later, he shifted from Fenton to Phantom, turned invisible, phased through the doors, and flew off into the afternoon. Tucker and Sam had already dodged out the side doors where the fans were not gathering, but Danny decided to go through the front so that if his powers did have an accident like him forgetting to maintain his invisibility, they would not be swamped with him. Jazz, oddly enough, never had the problem and he could see her walking through the crowd unglomped. _Lucky her,_ Danny bitterly mused as he saw all the fan girls (and guys) hanging out in front talking to each other. All of them fully equipped with cameras, cell phones, and a few of them wearing the new DP shirts that were finally getting out there into the marketplace.

"Heh, I almost pity them..." Danny muttered to himself as he cleared the airspace of the school and started flying home. He reached into a side pocket of the backpack and slipped in an earpiece with a microphone and turned it on. "Okay guys; is this working?"

_"Loud and clear,"_ Tucker answered from the corresponding headset that he had, and Sam had her own too. All three headsets courtesy of FentonWorks. _"It all work out?"_

"Yeah," Danny answered as he flew through downtown and let his invisibility drop now that he was clear of the crazed fans. "The fans all think I haven't left the school yet and I'm heading home. How about you guys?"

_"Same plan as before,"_ Sam answered, _"Though I'll be late, I need to give my parents a dodge. They're fine with me being with you... but they still want me to be wearing a GIW Specter Shield."_

Danny frowned as the words got through to his head. "GIW? As in Guys in White? Specter Shield? What do you..." he looked up just in time to smack into a billboard for Nasty Burger and collapse onto the nearby roof.

_"You okay?"_ Tucker asked, _"It sounded like..."_

"I hit a billboard? Yeah. I wasn't paying attention. Back to Sam, and her parents' Guys in White gear, please?" Danny asked as he sprang into flight again.

_"Oh, my parents are really obsessed about my personal security. I guess they're wondering what mingling with a half ghost does so they want me protected."_

"Mingle? Sam, we've been together a lot since I got the powers." This was just too rich for Danny. Him, rubbing off on Sam? _More like the other way around, and for the better._ "So unless you've developed some sort of psychic connection with me or are starting to phase through the silverware, I think you're fine."

There was a distinct pause in Sam's reply. _"Yeah, but I need to make sure I have the code so I can shut it off before I get to your house. The GIW version of the Specter Deflector is more... militant than the original."_

"I'm sure." He glanced up and could make out the distinct Ops Center on top of his house. "Alright, I'm almost home. Anything else we need to talk about?"

_"Yeah, make sure the fan girls think you're not home."_ Tucker said, _"I love attention as much as you, but you get a bit too much."_

Danny laughed as he cut his flying powers and switched back to human form as he passed through the open window into his room, "I'll try, Tucker. But I can't maintain a duplicate too far and definitely not while human." He glanced at some of the new things he had put into his room, mementos and similar from his heroics that he did not have to hide anymore since his identity was known, briefly wondering if he really needed them there.

_"What, do you have a secret identity or something, Invis-o-Bill?"_ Sam jested. While it was a comment in jest, for some reason it hurt Danny on the inside.

"Funny," he dryly retorted, "Alright, later guys."

_"Later."_ Tucker said.

_"See you soon, Danny. Oh, and don't worry, I was just giving you a hard time."_

He smiled, "I know. But the name still makes me cringe. See you soon." He slung his backpack over onto his bed and pulled the Fenton Thermos from it as he shut the earpiece off. He hoped that his parents had fixed the portal so he could just shoot Skulker into the Ghost Zone instead of having to use the Infi-Map to find a natural portal and then keep him on the other side until said portal closed without trapping himself in the Ghost Zone with an unfriendly ghost. He meant to return it to Frostbite, but the old Far Frozen had insisted he keep it until he had a reliable way into and out of the Ghost Zone again with the Fenton Portal. He made his way down to the lab where he could hear the sound of power tools.

"Careful, Jack!" Danny's mother warned, "You want to be on the outside when we activate it!"

"I know Maddie," his dad answered. "I mean, I still can't believe Danny survived that. The odds... I mean, we did the math. I have a bigger shot at winning a thinness contest than someone has surviving that much ecto-energy being infused into them!"

Danny blinked, pausing where he was to hear the conversation. _Long odds?_ He had never considered himself lucky to have survived the portal as he spent so long being more worried about going from geek to freak and later protecting his identity. Essentially, there was too much going on to worry about his odds of survival in the first place since he survived. _Were the odds that long at me surviving? Maybe being half-ghost was more of a warning than I realized..._

It also gave something a new meaning. He had found it annoying at how much Tucker, Sam, and Jazz trying to talk him out of depowering himself with the portal had sounded like they were trying to convince him not to commit suicide, but now he realized that they might have been a lot closer to the mark with that kind of approach than he ever realized. _I was probably protected by my powers there,_ Danny realized, _but the first time? I guess the pain was the nicer thing. Wow, and I did that twice getting the powers because of Desiree!_ Either someone with deity level powers like Clockwork had been loading the dice enough to make Einstein's head spin, or he had burned out all his luck in a few goes.

"Speaking of Danny," his mother continued, cutting Danny off from his contemplation, "is he home yet? The news said something about a ghost fight at school."

"Ghost? Fight? School?" Jack asked.

"Uh-oh..." Danny muttered to himself and prepared to turn intangible as his father barreled up the stairs like a lard cannonball on fire.

"I'M COMING, DANNY! COMING TO HELP WASTE THAT GHOST!" Jack shouted at the top of his lungs, still wearing his stained orange jumpsuit as he stormed up.

"Uh, dad!" Danny shouted as he turned intangible as his father ran right through him, skidding to a halt at the top of the stairs and stumbling forward onto his face as he realized he just ran through his son. "I caught it. Or, Sam and Jazz did after I helped beat it down."

"Oh," Jack said as he slowly pushed himself up dejectedly. "Well, I wanted to help..."

"Now Jack," Maddie said as she came up the stairs, "Danny has grown to be a capable ghost hunter of his own style. He doesn't need you leaning over his shoulder every second anymore."

Danny pressed himself to the edge of the wall as his parents met at the top of the stairs. "That said," he interjected, "I'd like to help you or get help when it comes to things. I mean, there's things that I can't take on alone. The only reason I didn't go for help before was..."

"Molecule by molecule, yeah." Jack said with a sad nod. "Jazz... kind of tore into us after things settled down about that when we were wondering why you hadn't told us before."

_This is awkward,_ Danny thought before clearing his throat and holding out the Thermos. "Anyways, the ghost in question is in here. I was kind of hoping the portal was working again so it'd be easier to flush him back into the Ghost Zone."

"Almost fixed, and it would be a good chance to make sure the flush system is working." Maddie said as she pulled her gloves tight again. "You can leave it there and we'll take care of it."

Danny glanced down at the Thermos again and realized that he might very much pity Skulker if any dissection knives came out. "Alright, I'll leave it down there. Just try not to dissect him first; he's pretty small without his armor."

"Don't worry," Jack said as the two (mad) scientists started walking down the stairs again. "We're not nearly in shape to dissect a ghost anyways."

Danny snickered as he entered the lab, "I'm sure some ghost out there is feeling very relieved about that." He looked at the portal; it still eerily looked like it did the first him he stepped in, except the on/off switch had been moved to the outside and more advanced now. Fighting back a shiver, he glanced over the gadgets on the lab table and saw that his father had been modifying the Fenton Ghost Peeler's armor mode. _I wonder if they're modifying it for Jazz? She seems to like using the armor portion, at least. Not that she gets a chance very often, she made it clear she's not carrying it around and Lancer made it clear the Thermos was pushing it as far as the school's weapon policy goes._ Danny suddenly had a funny feeling that Lancer had no idea Valerie was busy hunting ghosts the way she did when she disappeared, or the fact that she never carried weapons anymore, they just somehow materialized from Technus based technology, spared her from the rule.

"So, anything new I should keep my distance from?" Danny asked as he looked over the nearby lab table.

"Nope, just some repairs to the gadgets. Speaking of which, how come you lost both the Specter Speeder _and_ the jet?"

"A lot of ghosts and a lot of plasma blasts, though the jet was the auto-eject going off." Danny answered off handedly as he noticed a newspaper lying on the lab bench. _GCN Under Hot Debate – Use or Dismantle?_ He frowned as he pulled the paper out and read over the article.

"_Much debate goes on in the aftermath of the 'Disasteroid' incident and the network set up to save the Earth finally filled its purpose. Although most of it is being dismantled and moved out of the way, after all, who wants to take pictures of the Great Wall of China when there's a bunch of metal cables on top haphazardly, investigations by curious Norwegian scientists and their colleagues in Reykjavik have discovered that the cables have unusual properties. Namely, the ability to transport large amounts of energy across long distances with minimal waste during travel. Experimenting with the geothermal power plants of Iceland, they discovered that they were able to use the tubes that connected Iceland and Norway and the sea between them to acquire approximately ninety-nine percent (99%) of the power into Norway. Speaking before the General Assembly…"_The name of the scientist was smudged out by a bit of ectoplasmic goo, "_… spoke of the potential of solving energy problems by allowing energy rich regions to ship power to other countries directly via these cables. Although never officially named, common parlance uses the term 'GCN', or Ghost Control Network, to designate the long network of cables and hubs. These scientists propose that with some simple manipulation of location, such as burying cables underground and taking time to secure it, green energy could be made more available to all."_

Danny whistled quietly. That was something Sam would love, and if they were able to do that it could solve a lot more problems than geeks figuring out the best way to charge their array of handhelds. But a quiet part of his mind started blaring warning alarms; it was possible to use ghosts as a power source beyond just them turning something intangible like they had done, and usually through painful methods. If the Guys in White became involved... he read further.

"_However, opposition from several pressure groups, including Westborough Baptist Church, have advocated for its utter dismantlement, claiming that such technology should not exist. This idea is gaining traction in some areas, including some energy companies who feel threatened by the idea of free exchange of power. Regardless, all parties involved have agreed that something must be done and the potential is great in this network. Underway currently is a debate on the creation of a special task force composed of a variety of international officers, soldiers, and support staff to protect the important sites of the GCN while it is determined what to do with them."_

The article ended there, but it left Danny curious as to what was coming. Ignoring the crash in the lab as his father dropped a large crate of miscellaneous parts, he immediately started running down a list of reactions from notable players. _Guys in White? Probably would want to use it to literally control ghosts and blast them as soon as they came in. If it was modified to make Earth fully ghost shielded…_ He did not even know if the science behind it would work, but if they were willing to fire a theoretically dimension destroying missile into the Ghost Zone without even considering the fact that if the Zone went, so did Earth, then anything was possible with them. _What about the ghosts? Technus would be all over it. If he got into the system…_ Yes, he would have to make sure he kept Technus a priority if he ever showed his egotistical face again. _Nocture might use it as an amplifier if he got the chance, but if he's out I need to paste him anyways. _Most of the other enemies he had were low on the list, they would probably take any advantage they could from it, but he doubted that any would have major plots involving it. He put down the paper as the doorbell rang.

"Danny, could you get that?" his mother asked as she pushed a large crate that was starting to fall from the top of a stack back into place. Danny put the newspaper down and hurried up the stairs and through the kitchen to the door. Glancing outside, he saw it was Sam and Tucker.

"Hey guys," he said as he opened the door. Tucker was looking normal, but Sam was smirking as she held a deactivated belt lined with blue power lines in her hand and shoved it into her backpack. Danny guessed that it was the Guys in White variant that Sam had warned him about, deactivated and useless until turned on. "So, Tucker, you bring that new game?"

Tucker grinned as he held up the box, "Yup. Your system still working?"

"Yeah. I managed to keep my parents from cannibalizing it into parts for the new Specter Speeder. Ready to rage against the machine?"

"We're in." Sam and Tucker said together with grins as they walked in. As he closed the door, Danny noticed that at the end of the street one of the loonier fans he had seen in the crowd earlier and turned invisible as he finished closing the door. Hopefully, the loony fan did not see anything.

XXX

**End Chapter**


	2. Chapter 2

_"Kilo Lima Foxtrot, Oscar Mike Romero, you mean to tell me that a kid, a fourteen year old kid who was human for over ninety percent of his life and with less years of combat experience than a North Korean officer fresh from indoctrination, has been laying waste to a few million taxpayer dollars worth of equipment and dozens of our agents? ... I need a freaking drink. Go get the White Italian out of the cellar, you can join me. We all need a long drink."_

- Guys in White Director-in-Chief Alfred Vance, to operatives Kevin Lucifer Ferris and Oliver Michael Reznov (respectively by code name), after the discovery that Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were one and the same.

**Chapter 2**

**Fenton Works, Amity Park**

"Oh come on!" Danny shouted angrily as Tucker blasted his character off the edge of the cliff and left him to fall off the map.

"Sorry dude," Tucker retorted with a grin as he hit the L2 trigger on his controller to reload the rocket launcher, "but Friar Tuck has a reputation to keep. And that means at least one person flies off the map, if such can be done."

Gritting his teeth as the game finally registered that he fell beyond the ability to recover and his in-game character spontaneously died, Danny hit the X button to acknowledge he was ready to respawn, down to his last life, and smirked at where he found his character, and unloaded the pistol's full clip into one of the back of one of the AI characters, taking it down and leaving the grenade launcher for him to grab…

…only for his character to explode as soon as he stepped through the doorway to reach it and the game showed that Sam had wasted him with a trip mine. "You walked into that one," Sam pointed out, "literally."

"Yeah, I know." Danny answered in embarrassment as both Sam and Tucker were now dueling each other in the courtyard, Tucker slow with the rocket launcher while Sam was too fast to be hit but without a lot of return fire. Danny had nothing to do but watch. Several of the AI characters tried to get involved, but they were wasted in the crossfire until the timer ran out. Sam and Tucker had tied, with Danny right behind them. _Guess the early streak with the shotgun paid off, until Sam wasted that streak with a well placed noob tube._ He shook his head, "Alright. Another game?"

"Yeah. Though, to be fair, we've played this at home for a bit, so we know the maps." Sam pointed out with a shrug as she reached for one of the veggie crackers that she had brought with her.

"Really?" Danny asked with mock surprise and a slight smirk, "I never would of guessed."

"So," Tucker asked as the game loaded another multiplayer match and they started choosing their selections of stat focus, "How's the family taking the revelation?"

"Well, my parents have managed to get away from the 'what kind of experiments we can get' phase." Danny explained with a shrug, "Though, the ones they wanted to pull off were pretty mild compared to their normal fare, and some of them are probably going to help me in the long run. They've gotten some of my Phantom side DNA so they can update the house's defense systems to not try and waste me when I go ghost. Mom's side grandparents are kind of flipping out that their kid is essentially half spawn of Hell. Not that the Ghost Zone is Hell, but it's synonymous as far as they care."

Sam sighed, "I'm glad my grandmother's of the loving type who doesn't crusade. I love the desire to do what's right by the grandkids. Don't dig the specifics on 'what's right' sometimes, though. Dad's side?"

"Well, Granddad Fenton is pestering my dad about trying some of his gadgets… none of them are safe to even try on me."

"Didn't the Guys in White try to recruit him?" Tucker asked with a frown.

"Yeah, he told them that there needed to be government independent hunters out there to do the things the government won't or some ultra right wing nonsense. Other than that, not a lot and the next family reunion isn't for a few years."

"Speaking of family, any word on Danielle?" Sam asked, "I would think that she would have input on revealing the identity."

Danny shrugged. "She just told me to keep her quiet after we finished phasing the planet and everyone went off to get drinks to celebrate before flying off. Apparently she's exploring the world and used some of Vlad's old assets to sustain herself. Safe houses set up for emergencies with a lot of canned food and bottled water, that sort of thing. She's been pretty good about avoiding theft to survive as far as I can tell." He heard someone coming up the stairs and changed the subject. The only people in Amity Park who knew about Danielle in detail was him, Sam, Tucker, and Valerie. Like Jazz had respected his secret, he was going to respect Danielle's, so Jazz would be in the dark until it was necessary to tell her about his 'cousin'. "Hey, Friar Tuck, grenade off your port side."

Frowning, Tucker turned back to the game screen which had loaded in time to see Danny throw a spiked grenade into Tucker's character, blasting him off of the roof and into the courtyard for a lethal fall. Tucker's loud and beautiful reaction satisfied Jazz as she glanced in briefly before continuing on to her room, and Danny exhaled in relief. _Now, if only Danielle left me a way to contact her._ He glanced at the drawer where he had hidden the Infi-Map and realized that he should return it to Frostbite, though also realized that it could theoretically lead him to where Danielle was. He shrugged as he returned to the gaming. _I can decide on that later. For now, raging against the machine..._

XXXX

XXXX

**Guys in White Headquarters, [CLASSIFIED]**

Director-in-Chief Vance nodded slowly as Operatives Kilo and Oscar (the first letter of their first name in NATO military alphabet) reported on the Ghost Control Network status. "In conclusion, Director, the Ghost Control Network has too many unknowns, but given its focus on ecto-technology it is quite possible that it could be used as the generator for a global ghost restrainer. Think of it as a giant ghost shield, except constantly pulsing out and repelling ghosts. It would be unavailable for other duties, but it would make Earth completely ghost free." Kilo concluded. The African American GIW operative and his Caucasian partner were reporting their findings on the GCN after initial scientific analysis.

Vance nodded. "Good job, you two. We might have had difficulty dealing with the ghost boy, but we can deal with this. There is enough controversy surrounding the existence of ghosts that we should be able to convince at least some powers to let us experiment with the GCN to begin such a plan. If possible, we can end all ecto intrusion into reality. What about Plasmius? Any report on him?"

"Negative," Oscar answered. "No word on him, though deep space scans did detect his ecto-signature near the Disasteroid on its outbound course before there was a brief spike and it vanished. Where it means he was destroyed on impact or if something saved him is unknown, however."

Kilo opened a second white vanilla colored folder and began pulling out other reports. "We did discover some important files and equipment going through the remains of Masters' mansion and other hideouts, however. It turns out that he has been rather deep in cutting edge technology and has a wide array of surveillance bots. Operatives are going through their recordings now for all useful information. We also picked up the Masters' Blasters as freelancers for situations where we cannot be involved."

"Good, good." Vance said as he picked up one file in particular, "Interesting. We can use the Masters' Blasters as suggested. What about this Skeleton Key?"

"Secured in White Falcon base, so that should keep a lot of things locked up tight."

"Very well. Our next goal then is to gain jurisdiction over the GCN, over the American nodes and sites if nothing else since most other countries will be wary of our presence. You two are to keep tabs on Phantom and his friends. We might be blocked by executive order from going after him while Congress fights itself fixing the Anti-Ecto Control Act in light of the existence of half-ghost hybrids, but any ghostly friends of his are still free to hunt. Move a platoon to the Amity Park GCN site as well; Amity Park Police have taken jurisdiction for the moment but they really want to put their SWAT manpower back to the majority of the city, so make them an offer. Threaten to audit the city's budget if you have to, since Masters abused it from preliminary reports and that would be enough to break the city if needed." Vance sat back in his chair and nodded to the two. "Leave the reports. Dismissed."

The two agents left and he began looking through the various reports, interested in how much had been hidden. _Experiments on duplicating a half-ghost... yes, Vlad Masters is certainly one crazed up fruit loop. Interesting, another one is still out there but whereabouts unknown. Schematics for Fenton's ecto-skeleton... pretty much useless now. Ah, ghosts as a power source, courtesy of Fenton mad science. There's another option for dealing with those specters. Hmmm, Valerie Gray. Possible recruit, unless her friendship with Phantom proves to be too much to turn her._ He had many options available to him, but his first objective now had to be getting jurisdiction of the GCN. He glanced at the clock and nodded to himself; time to go. He had a meeting to attend to in order to sell that idea and counteract the idea of an international security force.

XXXX

XXXX

**Axion Labs, Amity Park**

"Interesting find, Mister Gray," the elderly director of Axion Labs said with folded arms as the contents of the Fenton Thermos were dumped onto the lab floor and the ghostly cybernetic armor clattered onto the ground. "Not many can get their hands on ghost origin technology for our study."

"Thank you, sir," Damon Gray answered, "but it was my daughter who found it and brought it to me. You are aware..."

"Yes," the director said with a slight smile, "We are aware of her ghost hunting activities. In fact, we have an offer that might help you get back onto your feet after the incident that seems to have lead to her career starting." He nodded to one of his assistants and the assistance pulled out a folder that Damon recognized as a contract. "Now, she is only newly fifteen but we believe that she would be well suited for field testing some of our newer anti-ghost equipment."

"The government contract?"

"The government contract. They want a whole new array of anti-ecto weapons, and so will other organizations. While our normal recipient is happy to work out kinks themselves, others will not be. We also believe she is experienced enough to be able to handle problems, but we will respect your position as her father." The assistant handed the folder and contract to Damon and he nodded as he took it.

"I'll read it and show Valerie, but I cannot and will not promise anything."

He nodded. "Very well, that is all we can legally ask. We've already pushed the edge of the envelope offering this because of the hazards of the work."

_That's what I'm afraid of,_ Damon silently added before coughing in his hand. "Is there anything else, sir? I need to return to the security center and make sure the new kid isn't playing video games on the job."

"Recommend a good book to him if he is, Gray, and tell your daughter that we appreciate the find."

"I will, sir." He nodded briefly and headed off, opening the folder and glancing over the contract. It was remarkably simple, likely because it was meant to be read by a fifteen year old girl. He noted the usual roulette of 'Axion Labs is not responsible' clauses, but as the lab preferred it did cover expenses incurred for injuries on official lab business. It was also generous on account of her school activities, though he suspected some of the generosity might be related to an upcoming grant to Casper High the lab was planning to hopefully be able to get some more employees of the type they needed. It even offered to help make sure she was legally certified for the weaponry and would cover the expenses for said certification, not that the current gun laws covered ecto guns. All in all, except for the fact that it involved Valerie leaping head first into dangerous situations regularly, it was a good deal and would finally let them leave the poor side of town apartment behind.

But as he opened the door to the security center and put the contract away, he started wondering just how much she wanted to actually do it and how much was that Masters guy manipulating her and taking advantage of Phantom's early day failure. _She always was determined once something came up. I wonder if she's determined to hunt ghosts down, or at least the threatening ones if her offhand comment about seeing other sides was referring those spooks._ He glanced at the new guard, a low grade graduate from Casper High, and found him reading a book and glancing up regularly at each monitor.

"No video games this time?" Damon asked with a smirk.

"Nah. Decided that it wasn't worth the hassle even if we can play 'em during break. Besides, maybe some studying will let me get into a decent college if I can get a good CAT score or two."

"Don't be so sure. Quite a few good, skilled people failed the CAT exams. In all honesty, I'll trust an SAT score over a CAT one any day. The CAT is just way too early to determine anything."

"Not a lot of local colleges see it that way. They think the CAT determines your destiny or something."

"Not going to be able to go beyond local, I take it?"

"Nope. And it wasn't for a lack of trying."

"Who knows, maybe you enjoy this job, and Axion Labs is pretty reasonable most of the time." Damon grabbed the cup of coffee he had left in there, still warm, and took a sip as bitter memories of an outside context problem came back. "Unless you fail horribly."

"Yeah." He glanced at the clock, "Speaking of which, what's your opinion on this whole GCN business? I mean, you worked on it so you know more about it than I do."

"I mostly ran security for the Antarctic Hub and manned a console, but I think we need to get rid of a lot of it, most of it was haphazardly thrown together. We would of never been able to build it if we were designing it to be permanent or with more than one or two good engineering principles. If we want to keep it, it is going to take a lot of redesign work." Damon frowned as he looked at the news, which was covering a construction accident (or rather, deconstruction) in Israel while removing part of the GCN that had been placed through the center of Jerusalem. "Accidents like that are going to be common, but we had to do a job that was only good enough or we would of ran out of time. On top of that, how would we protect it? Something of that scale is not something we can leave to any one nation. Even the armies of all NATO member countries combined would have difficulty guarding the whole thing."

The young guard shrugged, "Well, at least it's pulled the focus to something else instead of the latest soap-opera-in-real-life tabloid stuff. And kept Phantom from going to full out with a fandom."

"I've been told he's rather annoyed about it, actually. Having such a large fandom, that is." Damon said with amusement as he recalled several of the incidents in Amity Park where the fans rushed him. "I suppose that's what you get when you save the world at fourteen, almost fifteen. Now, let's go over security protocols again and see how well you've memorized them..."

XXXXX

XXXXX

**Three Hours Later**

**Walker's Prison, the Ghost Zone**

"Nicolai Technus. Genius technological mad scientist in life, still the same as a ghost." Sheriff Walker said as he paced in his interrogation room, watching the chained and power drained technophile struggle against the chains. "So many rules violations, so little time. Possession of non Ghost Zone contraband, constant integration with non-ghost electronics, repeated breakouts, disobedience of authority, and while not a rule violation, colossal arrogance that would make ol' Uncle Sam wince in shame?" Walker slapped his rulebook shut. "And I never believed that we would get past the billion year and sextuple afterlife sentence, but you, Nicolai Technus, have finally done it."

"_I AM TECHNUS!"_ the technological ghost shouted, "YOU CANNOT CHAIN... YEAOW!"

Walker shook his head as one of his riot guards poked Technus with a hot iron, native to the Ghost Zone of course. "Come on, Technus, we both know that I have finally perfected that special prison cell for you. No technology, completely blocks your powers... it's finally over for you."

Suddenly, the alarm siren blared and Walker growled, pointed at a guard at the door. "Find out what's going on, trooper!"

"Yes sir!" the riot guard said before hurrying out the door. Walker turned to Technus and grabbed him by the prison uniform, "Now, let's get you secured so I can waste the fool who is trying to challenge me..."

He paused as he heard a thud and the guard he had sent out came flying back inside, crashing into the guard with the hot iron. Walker turned to see Skulker in his unauthorized high tech outfit he had briefly used against the ghost kid in a hunt that turned into micromanagement for everyone involved. The suit was clearly damaged, though the majority of the damage looked old. "And no, I'm not sorry to barge in," Skulker said as he decked the other riot guard in the face and knocked him away before pulling out a scepter for a high tech king out from behind him and tossing it to Technus, who caught it before Walker could intercept as Skulker paired the toss with a net blast. Walker dodged, but it was too late to stop Technus from getting his Lightning Rod, and the entire room filled with electricity as Technus blew his restraints off.

"Thank you, Skulker. I'll consider this a down payment for your next suit." Technus charged the lightning rod and shot a bolt of energy at Skulker, repairing some of the newer damage to the armor. "That's on the house, so we can LEAVE this place!"

"Good, now let's get you to the factory." Skulker said as Walker pushed himself up and charged. Technus turned and shocked him with electricity, stunning him and blasting him into the wall again. "Later, Sheriff."

Walker growled as the two fled the prison. "Okay Skulker, let's see how well you realize that breaking into prison is the easy part. Breaking out..." he grinned, "well, that's the catch."

XXXX

"What about the guards?" Technus asked as they approached the courtyard. "Walker will have them all over, and he installed new ghost seeking Prison-to-Air Missile batteries."

"You take out the missiles, I sprung a few more prisoners to get a riot going on my way in and can keep the guards off your back. We blast our way out in the confusion." The armored ghost looked towards the courtyard and grinned as he saw the chaos of battle ahead as the guards fought to maintain control of the prison. "Yes, it's working. Now let's go!"

The two sprang into the courtyard, shocking, blasting, and bludgeoning their way through the guards. Skulker allowed the bloodlust to take him over, enjoying his work as he knifed and blasted his way through the guards as Technus overloaded the nearest PAM battery, the triple-tubed missile launcher exploding in electric energy. A guard tried to rush him, but Skulker fired a missile at his riot shield, knocking the guard back before another prisoner leapt onto him and ripped the shield out of the guard's hands to start using against other guards. Technus had come back and the two made good their escape in the confusion, flying away as the smoke could be seen for quite a distance.

"Well, that went well." Technus said with a grin as they flew away, watching one of Walker's paddy wagons flying towards the scene sirens blaring from wherever it had been stationed before. "I always enjoy tweaking that white freak's nose, especially since he can't keep his hands to his own area and Earth."

"Yes..." Skulker responded when he suddenly felt heavy and dipped. "Speaking of tweaking, the jets in my armor are failing."

Technus nodded and put a hand on the jetpack, and Skulker felt a jolt of electricity as power levels raised again. "That'll keep until we get to the Factory of Freak."

"Thanks," Skulker said, moderately embarrassed from needing help. _Bah, Technus is a friend. Okay, we're both happy to backstab each other, but we're friends in many ways. Mutual usage of technology, our hatred for the ghost boy..._ He blinked, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.

"So," Technus asked as they passed by the River of Revulsion, "Normal suit?"

"Yes, standard design. We also need a new Purpleback Guerilla type override."

Technus cursed in Russian. "_Chyort_, that technogeek _is_ good. That suit had absolutely no wireless connection, he shouldn't have been able to TOUCH IT! Next thing you know he'll be able to hack a stupid STONE AGE AXE OR SOMETHING!"

"You want to take care of him?" Skulker asked as they took a left. "I think we both agree that getting rid of one of the ghost boy's little human helpers would be a good thing for all of us."

"Yeah, until those human emotions send him ripping through the Ghost Zone like an overgrown bandicoot spinning like a maniac." Technus shrugged. "Though, I will keep tabs on him. The potential to leave a legacy is there... one atypical of most inventors and only possible by modern technology and circumstance."

The cybertronic armored ghost raised an eyebrow, "Funny. You almost sound like you admire him."

"As a potential technomancer, yes. I wonder what he would look like in the Ghost Zone. And I don't mean coming through the portal."

Skulker shrugged. "All I know is that my form was rather inadequate for my favored activities. I know little of the transition period, but I know that there is usually some sort of similarity, an echo."

Technus nodded as they were nearing an industrialized part of the Ghost Zone. "Yes, tech obsessed remains tech obsessed, so forth, assuming it isn't a creature forming out of the ectoplasmic muck. So it would be interesting to see, or it could be very painful for all involved. Anyways, let's get you a new suit so you can get back to hunting."

XXXXX

**11:12 AM, The Next Day**

**Casper High**

"So where's Danny?" Nathan Lester asked quietly to Tucker as they were sitting in History class, listening to the archaic teacher go on about Sherman's march through Georgia. "I really, really need to go to the bathroom."

Tucker glanced up and saw Danny in ghost form shooting past the board, intangible but not invisible, followed by a rather large blob ghost. No one reacted, most of them bored to near death by the tone of the teacher as she began to start what seemed like preaching and ghosts were basically background noise in town at this point unless they threatened someone. The two landed outside as Danny shook his head and pulled out a Fenton Thermos, capturing the ghost before capping it and switching back to human form and hurrying back inside. Half a minute later, he came in holding the pass and signing back in as the history teacher continued to drone on. Nathan quickly hurried off as Danny took his seat and visibly grit his teeth. "What'd I miss?"

"Just the start of preaching," Tucker said. "Going on about Sherman being a killer and all."

His hybrid friend sighed. "Again? Right. Wake me if I fall asleep."

"Will do..." Tucker said as he suppressed a yawn, vaguely wishing that Sam had been in the same class as them. Idly, he sat his PDA on his lap and started zipping through the news bits idly. Among the top items was a trade dispute in Scandinavia, a brief urban land war in Asia that ended badly for all the gangs involved, and a UN resolution on the network...

_Wait,_ Tucker thought as he saw the last one,_ UN resolution on the GCN? Backed by the General Assembly and the Security Council?_ He tapped the news article and read through, suppressing a whistle. _Wow. They actually managed to get countries to unify their GCN protection... still controlled by the native countries, but working under a common command structure to streamline communications._ He paused as he read through a list of considered candidates... _No way... Danny?!_ Tucker glanced both ways to make sure no one was looking and tapped Danny on the shoulder, whispering "Hey dude, check this."

Danny took the PDA and frowned. "Me?" he asked just a little too loud.

"FENTON!" the teacher shouted, "What're you babbling about?"

"Uh, sorry." Danny said quickly as he turned the PDA invisible under the desk. Tucker was glad the lights were out, because it was probably a reflex. "I was just surprised at the..." Tucker saw Danny glancing towards the current slide in the power point, "cruelty of the Union soldiers we keep upholding as brave loyalists..."

The history teacher nodded despite the fact that there was almost no sincerity in Danny's voice. "Indeed, other history teachers keep holding up the Union as the utter heroes of the whole affair, ending slavery..." she returned to her preaching as Danny gave Tucker a meaningful glance, and he realized what it meant. _Lunch, we're talking about this._

XX

**Thirty Minutes Later**

"So," Sam said as she read the article over at an outside table, "They want you to act as the commander for the GCN guard force, or at least that's what the rumor mill says."

"Yeah." Danny answered with a frown, "It's probably the rumor mill, but what if it's true? I mean, they're still arguing over the Federal Anti-Ecto Control Act in Congress, some wanting to use me as a superpowered attack dog and others are saying I should just be put down as an aberration. Then there's the reasonable ones trying to argue for human decency. Most of them would just drop the arguments for something like this if it wins brownie points with the voters or makes them look good."

"I think you'll be fine for now," Sam said. "They can't really go after you for just trying to return to normal living now that the threat of an apocalyptic asteroid is over."

"Really?" Tucker asked with a frown. "How do you make that out? I thought we were all really lucky that they weren't passing anti-ghost laws and hunting Danny down just because he's a threat. I mean, I'm pretty sure he's the most powerful person on the planet as far as raw power goes. It isn't like politicians and leaders to just let him free like this."

"He is powerful physically," Sam explained, "and you're right, it's surprising the politicians are letting it slide, but it probably has to do with the fact that people are looking at him as the guy who saved the world. As soon as things go back to status quo, though, I would be ready for anything."

"Or when the Guys in White convince Congress that half ghosts should be open season," Danny pointed out as his hand closed into a fist. "Even your parents are happy for GIW tech lighting me up like a Christmas Tree or Menorah if it keeps you safe from and 'malignant energy' or 'ghoulish auras' or whatever they think I'm made of. Trust me, if we have people in this country whining about God hating America over not persecuting homosexuals or people who seriously think that we should completely remove the Second Amendment, a half-ghost like me is going to be a popular target."

A dirty look from Sam towards a gaggle of the normal roulette of what she occasionally called 'plastics', reminded Danny that he was a target in more way than one. She shook her head before answering, "Yeah. It's going to be some fun years ahead. I think they're really just holding off because you're a big star. Knowing how long popular memory lasts, once you're ditched in publicity for something else, they'll make a move. And that's assuming nothing nasty happens that makes you look bad and gives your opponents an excuse to go after you for what is piped off as good reasons."

Danny glanced down at the pudding on his lunch tray and started wondering again if he had made the right choice. Everything had worked out so far, but what if it was just a calm before the storm? What if he had, by returning to Fenton form in front of the whole world, pulled the pin from a thermonuclear grenade? What if he had rolled the dice with longer odds than the odds of him surviving the accident that made it possible for him to take such a risk? The idea that he might have set off a long conflict over him did not sit well with him. _Gambling with my life is one thing. Gambling with Sam, Tucker, Jazz... I hate doing that in a fight, but we all knew the risks and they gamble just as often with my own life in those fights as I do with theirs. But gambling with the lives of people I'll never even meet, never have the decency to tell them why because I would never see them?_ The thought did not sit well with him.

"Well, I think that I'll be turning down the offer with the GCN either way." Danny finally said to try and steer the topic back. "I don't think I'm qualified anyways even if it is just a reassurance move or something. I'll let the professionals lead and lend a hand whenever they need it."

"You sure, dude?" Tucker asked. "I get where you're coming from, but what if the Guys in White get jurisdiction?"

"What's the worst they can do, dismantle it for being built with ecto-technology? It's essentially steel cables with a conductor for ecto-energy, and that was modified from a generic power cable. Honestly, the GIW dismantling it just means that there isn't an already built root for something like it in the future. Besides, I don't think anyone outside the US wants the Jerks in White running around their turf, so it's not like them having one of theirs as head of a security team will do anything but keep me at arm's length." Danny shrugged. "And besides, I'm not qualified. I'm not even a 3.0 student!"

"To be fair..." Sam began when the bell cut her off.

"Yeah." Danny nodded as the three pushed themselves up. "Busy fighting ghosts all the time." He reached towards Sam and grabbed her hand with a smile, "Ca'mon, let's get to class." He was sure he caught sight of Tucker giving a half exasperated look in his peripheral vision and wondered if Tucker was starting to get wielded out by the two being together. He shoved the thought aside; he had known that both of them had feelings for each other a lot longer than either of them realized, and if Tucker really was disturbed he could always speak up. _Besides, it's not really anything close..._

XXX

**Three Hours Later**

Danny smiled as the bell rang, ready to dodge out of school and from fans. He, Sam, and Tucker were planning on hitting the Nasty Burger for some post-test food to celebrate surviving another brutal biology test. As Danny turned out the door, he nearly ran headlong into Mister Lancer.

"Whoa, sorry. Mister Lancer?"

"Ah, Daniel." Lancer said, passing a letter to him. "This just arrived for you. Apparently its of high importance." The bald teacher raised a knowing eyebrow, "You better hurry. Feel free to become ghostly or whatever you do, it's after school hours."

"Uh, thanks." Danny said as he took the letter and hurriedly opened it as Sam and Tucker were waiting for him at the end of the hall. It took only a few moments for him to feel the pit form in his stomach.

"What is it?" Tucker asked, "That looks official and I wasn't told about it."

"Its summons to the GCN site in Amity Park; apparently they intend to get my answer there. Signed by the Chief of Police himself." Danny explained as he handed the letter to them, "And I think they want Phantom, not Fenton."

"Wait," Sam said as she finished reading, "There's an offhand mention of the Guys in White. I could of sworn I saw one of their tanks driving by earlier."

"You did?" Tucker asked in surprise as he took it.

"I thought I was just seeing things... Danny, you have to be careful. It could be a trap."

Danny blinked as his ghost sense fired off and Tucker reached for his PDA. He raised an eyebrow at the technogeek who shrugged. "Technus?"

"Maybe..." Sam asked as she glanced around. "You better get going. We'll get the Thermos."

"Got it." Danny answered as he ran towards the window, "Going ghost." A flash of white later, he was in ghost form and phasing through the window. Floating above the school, he looked around. "Now, where is that ghost..."

A shot of electricity answered him as he turned with a quick scream as the jolts fired through his ectoplasmic body. Recovering quickly (and with his hair on end from the shock), he turned and saw the technology obsessed ghost floating there. "Well well, Danny Phantom the GCN founder, all summoned up to see your work."

"Hey, I didn't build it," Danny pointed out as he ran his hand through his hair to straighten it, "I had a lot of help. Government, family, Tucker made the designs... I just provided the PR to get it rolling."

"Well then, let's go see how they use your handiwork, huh?" Technus shot off, entering the power lines and speeding towards the GCN hub in Amity Park. Danny felt his insides tighten as the many scenarios played out in his head and shot after Technus full throttle. He had to stop him from reaching the GCN site and using the technology for taking over the world or some other insane scheme. _Now why in all reality did I even _say_ that to him months ago,_ he bitterly asked himself as he approached the site and saw a squadron of GIW White Bengal Tiger Tanks and various infantry deployed, along with two very familiar agents.

"There's the ghost boy!" one of the GIW infantrymen shouted.

"Stand down, he's not a free target!" one of the regular agents Danny had faced angrily; the Caucasian one.

"Wow," he muttered to himself as he hurried towards the center of the local hub, "I have to get their names at some point." He landed as Technus came out of the hub, laughing manically.

"It's over, child!" Technus taunted, "I have control of this node now! Today, Amity Park, tomorrow, THE WORLD!"

A large blue blast of energy interrupted him as one of the tanks fired an anti-ghost round at the technopathic ghost. Danny glanced around and shouted towards the Guys in White, "Hey, thanks for shooting at the actually evil ghost for once!" With the point made, he turned towards Technus and collided into him, blasting him with a punch charged with energy and sending Technus into the air as he flew after him, firing more ghost rays at him to blast him away. However, his opponent had recovered and raised a shield of his own, deflecting the rays back down and forcing the GIW troops to take cover instead of trying to get enough angle in their weapons to fire at them. Technus laughed and dived down, colliding with Danny and knocking him into the GCN hub building.

"Now," Technus said with a toothy smile, "I believe I have a network to enter..."

"NO!" Danny shouted as he grabbed Technus as the ghost entered the mainframe in a data-shaped form, a ghastly mix of ones and zeroes. Suddenly, he felt a tingling sensation as he turned intangible and was yanked into the GCN itself with a scream and suddenly found himself shot as if he had gone into lightspeed.

He was not even sure if his ghost form was still intact as he sped inside.

XXX

**End Chapter**


	3. Chapter 3

_"I would not count on the American teenager as a candidate, powers or not. No offense to him, he has the potential to be a skilled leader as we have all seen, but he is too young as of now and is not even past his primary secondary schooling. We are not so desperate anymore for any solution that might work. I will not veto the suggestion and allow the offer to be made, but it would be in our better interest to not offer him the job as leader of the GCN guard force."_

- The Russian ambassador on the UN Security Council, on the suggestion that Danny Phantom lead Task Force Raven, the intended multinational force to guard the GCN sites across the globe.

**Chapter 3**

**Location: ?**

It was _incredible_, the sensation he was feeling. He sped forward like a spirit on its way to bliss, a shooting star in the night sky, a radiant meteor streaking across the galaxy. He _was_ speed... and maybe, just maybe, he was light to. Too bad he was unable to get much of an idea of what was going on, because otherwise he might be able to try out Einstein's most famous thought experiment.

The sensation ended suddenly, however, as he came flying out and tumbled forward to the confused shouts of guards and workers in what _sounded_ to him like Chinese. Though, for all he knew it could have been Japanese, Korean, or even Vietnamese.

Danny groaned as he put a hand to his head, shaking it as he looked up and saw Technus floating there, also disoriented as guards with red stars on their helmets pointed rifles at them and shouted something that neither of them understood.

"Uh, guys, I'm the good guy," Danny said as one of the guards pointed a rocket launcher at his face. He shot up into the air as they fired a barrage of bullets at Technus, who simply allowed the lead to shoot through his ectoplasmic form, and bullets also passed through Danny as he was caught in the crossfire, but other than a slight tingling sensation they did little to him. It was more of an annoyance than a threat. _At least, until I switch back to Fenton,_ he reminded himself as he pummeled into Technus.

"What the heck did we just do?!" Danny shouted at his opponent as they flew into the air.

"What?!" Technus asked, "You FOLLOWED me?! INCONCEIVEABLE!"

"Do you even know what that word means?" he asked as he smashed his opponent in the face with his elbow and followed it up with an ice ray, which Technus redirected with his lightning rod into the air and a cloud began to darken and drop bits of snow below. They collided again, Technus' burst of electricity from the lightning rod meeting one of Danny's ghost rays, and the two were locked in a beam version of tug of war, struggling to take dominance and hit their opponent.

"How did you follow me into that network, child?!" Technus sneered at Danny as flak shells exploded near them and their battle.

"I guess I just phased in like you!" Danny answered, followed with an unintelligible noise as he struggled to keep his power focused and push Technus back. _Come on, come on..._ Danny thought repeatedly as he tried to increase the power. His ray of energy started to change from green to white as it became supercharged before he finally let it all loose with a scream, the white rings normally hailing his transformation flashing around the hand firing the beam as he overcharged the blast and push Technus back, sending the technologically obsessed ghost flying away, and leaving Danny lightheaded from the brief excursion.

"Whoa," he said, looking at his still glowing hand as he saw Technus soar at least a mile back before recovering and stabilizing his flight pattern. "I haven't done _that_ in a while..." He looked up as a large bolt of lightning shot at him and shocked him, sending him tumbling down into what he assumed was the Chinese Army, who were shouting and firing bullets at him desperately. He turned intangible and phased through the ground as Technus charged and landed at one of the old flak guns the local military was using, taking it over and manipulating it.

"Now, watch as I, Technus, MASTER OF ALL TECHNOLOGY, turn your weapons against you!" He laughed as he turned the flak cannon, a nearby officer's car, and a crane used in the deconstruction into some sort of treaded mecha with the flak gun for a head, which started glowing green. Finally, the Chinese soldiers were pulling out of the fight. _Good, those rifles won't help,_ Danny thought as he jumped down behind of some of the retreating soldiers and created an energy shield to protect them from one of the ghost-enhanced flak bursts, _though those rockets might work on the mecha_! The burst had caused him to slide back, but he had stopped the blast and the soldiers had survived. Danny charged his own shot of plasma and fired it at the mech, aiming for the cannon. He missed the cannon itself, but he did knock it backwards and cause its next shot to go wide into the air.

Danny leapt forward, firing more bursts at the makeshift mecha. He did not do much damage to it, but he was not trying to destroy it, he just wanted Technus' attention and that of the mecha so the soldiers could get out of there alive. _No need to give the Ghost Zone any more inhabitants before it's natural causes,_ he grimly reminded himself as he blasted a few shots at Technus to distract him. It worked and an anti-tank rocket from one of the braver (or just more disciplined) soldiers struck the mecha, blowing a large hole and detonating the magazine, splintering it.

"NO!" Technus shouted, "How did a mere still mortal-" He was interrupted, however, when Danny froze him solid with a beam of ice fired from his eyes, freezing the ghost solid and sending him plummeting to the ground. Danny followed and stood above him, hands glowing with energy in case Technus broke out.

The ice did break, but to his surprise Technus remained on his knees, the lightning rod powered down and he could only assume it disabled. "I... I surrender, ghost child, you won this round."

"Good." Danny said as he reached behind him and realized that he did _not_ have a Thermos on hand. "Ah.. crud. Alright, you're coming with me then," he grabbed Technus by the clasp of his cape and dragged him towards the GCN site. Most of the guards were gone, and the few left were just hiding in cover, leaving Danny wishing he knew a few bits of Chinese so he could tell them what had happened. He was left to bitterly note that he should of taken an actual language at Casper High, especially since what Esperanto he knew was for a _dead_ language, so was Latin. _Help me with my English class, they said..._

"Alright, talk. How did you transfer us?" Danny pulled Technus closer to make sure he knew that it was not an empty threat.

"My powers are of technology. I do not know how you transferred into the electricity of the Ghost Control Network as you humans call it, but that is how I transferred myself!" Technus bit back as an answer.

Growling, Danny threw Technus onto the ground and fired a couple more bolts of ice at him to pin him down while he tried to think this out. _No idea where I am, a hostile ghost to drag, and I don't even have the Infi-Map with me because I left it at home._ He glanced towards the GCN hub and sighed. _Right, I was going to decide if I was going to use it to find Danielle to. Gotta come up with an answer to that one._ He added it to a list of things to-do when he got back to Amity Park. _Okay, I can fly fast, fast enough to go cross country airborne, but that took days and I have school in the morning._ Danny started pacing, partially glad that crews had left because he did not also need guards firing rifles at him nor did he want to risk hurting them in self defense.

"Wait..." Danny said as he looked at Technus. "You said it was powers of _technology_..."

"Yes. Are you deaf or something, now? I finally did damage?"

"No," he shot back defensively, "just shut up now, I'm thinking. Unless you want to drag us both back to Amity Park or have a portable Ghost Zone portal handy."

Technus opened his mouth, but shut it after realizing that he did not want his face iced too. Danny thought back, trying to think of how Technus had operated in the past. _Okay, that stupid car-puter thing, cut in by those stupid Masters' Blasters..._ No, that was not the answer. That was Technus in his generic insanity. _Stealing Axion Lab's supercomputer in space? Nope, just generic take over the world hacking for him._ He blinked as he remembered the time he had split himself into his human and ghost forms to get some time off. _No, that... wait._

He remembered how that adventure had started. It had began with him deleting an old game trying to free up hard drive space. _What game was it?_ Danny tried to recall, somehow that felt like it was the answer but it was eluding him for a moment. He did remember that Technus had hid in that game. _Right, Sam and Tucker helped me in the game itself to fight him... wait a second._

Immediately, he hit flashbacks. Technus seeking free access to the internet through the game, Danny struggling with a makeup test at the time. Him and Tucker being constantly wasted by Sam in the game and not knowing about it, foolishly thinking she never gamed online. "Wait a second..." Danny said quietly to himself as it hit him. "I was able to overshadow my computer and fight with my ghost powers in _Doomed_... which should mean..." Danny grabbed Technus and dragged him to the GCN site, before phasing into it and desperately thinking of Amity Park, and he was off to the races yet again.

XXX

**Amity Park GCN Site**

**Amity Park**

"Halt, this is a restricted area." a Guys in White light infantryman said, pointing his ecto-rifle at her.

"Ease off, we're with Danny and unless you want that ghost running without containment, you might need this." Sam retorted, holding up the Fenton Thermos.

"Let those two through, trooper," a police officer with a lieutenant's insignia on his badge said as he came up behind the trooper. "This is Amity Park jurisdiction, and those two probably know more about what happened than anyone, for the love of all the deities humans believe in."

"The Federal Anti-Ecto..." the trooper began, but Sam cut him off.

"... does not cover this without a warrant from a local authority, and this is not an emergency of the scale that supersedes local authorities." Sam smirked.

"So yeah, unless you want to really turn this into a PR spat," Tucker grinned, waving his PDA threateningly. Sam had no idea why people became afraid of Tucker's PDA. With Skulker, at least, it made sense since Tucker could hack into it. For everyone else, it made no sense since Tucker never even turned the record functions on except to snap amusing pictures. _I suppose still technically being mayor does put some ethos into that threat..._

The guard gulped before glancing towards one of the two GIW agents who were always pestering Danny, who sighed and gave a slight nod. The trooper stood down and let them through. "Thanks," Tucker said with a slight smirk. "Now, let's see what Technus did with the hub." The two walked up to the hub's control center, which was located just next to it. Sam recognized most of the controls as the same ones which were used in Antarctica, but scaled down for local control and not global. Tucker sat down in one of the vacant chairs and started typing into one of the consoles.

"So what happened? Where'd Danny and Technus go?" Sam asked, leaning over Tucker's shoulder like a backseat driver.

"Hang on, I'm bringing it up... there!" Tucker said as he brought the security footage up, showing Danny and Technus fighting until Technus turned into data and shot into the GCN... followed by Danny. "Uh oh." Tucker said, "I think they went global."

"Track them." Sam ordered, a pit forming in her stomach. If Danny was alone, and with no Thermos, or if Technus beat him... _No, you have to trust him,_ she told herself as Tucker followed the energy fluctuation up across Canada, then Alaska, into Russian Siberia and then down into China, near the Chinese/North Korean border where the fluctuation stopped. _Oh no..._

"That's... not good, is it?" Tucker asked, his face held tightly with teeth bared in terror. Danny going to somewhere where they spoke English would be bad enough, but him appearing in a foreign country fighting Technus? Without even having his passport?

"No, it's not." Sam answered grimly. Well, grim for her, at least. "It's a diplomatic incident in the making depending on how much gets blown up there. Especially considering the original reason Danny was called here was for that offer-?"

Another spike of energy was picked up, this time incoming. Tucker frowned and the two ran to the window where the network briefly glowed white before two figures shot out. One was an almost fifteen year old boy with white hair and a black jumpsuit with a certain logo on it, the other was Technus.

_"Danny!"_ Sam and Tucker shouted in unison as they hurried out of the control center with the Fenton Thermos in hand, as Danny pushed himself back up, greeted by a few dozen ecto-rifles from the Guys in White.

"STAND DOWN!" Sam shouted, "That's Danny!" The two pushed past the GIW Light Infantry and hurried to their friend's side. Tucker took the Thermos from her hands and sucked Technus into it while Sam hugged Danny tightly.

"Whoa," Danny said with a smile as two white rings passed around them and he returned to his human self, the ghostly echo leaving his voice. "I need to get shot through a network more often... and can you point those somewhere else?" He threw a glare at the Guys in White, who finally relented realizing that this was the wrong fight to pick.

"What happened in China, was anyone hurt?!" Sam asked desperately, wanting to know how bad things were going to get.

"As far as I know, injuries only, but I couldn't understand what they were saying." Danny explained, "Technus made some sorta mecha out of a flak cannon and some nearby vehicles, but I think I managed to stop it from doing damage to anyone. Tore up the landscape a bit and they expended a lot of rounds trying to shoot us with what looked like AKs to me, but overall I don't think anyone was hurt other than Technus here."

"And the network? How'd you shoot through?" Tucker asked curiously.

"Remember our second run-in with Technus, and how I leveled the field a bit?"

Sam blinked, taking a few moments to remember how Danny had overshadowed the game itself to be able to use his powers in it to fight Technus much as Technus used his own powers inside. _Ultimate cheat code indeed,_ she had agreed later when he tested it out. "Yeah, I remember. Same idea?"

"Same idea, except I think I can use it to leap around the network." Danny shrugged. "I probably have to be Phantom to use it, and I doubt I can take anyone who isn't a ghost with me and I don't even know if we even should try, but..."

"But nothing," one of the GIW agents said threateningly. "You will not be touching the GCN once it is under proper Guy in White jurisdiction. We might not be able to bring you in for questions..."

"Or experiments, lots of really painful experiments," the other one cut in.

"Oh, go flash yourself or something," Danny shot back to cut them off. "You don't have jurisdiction here, it's an Amity Park matter. Besides, there was something I believe I was being summoned here for..."

"That's correct," cut in a new voice and Danny looked up to see a well dressed politician walking up towards him. "You may wish to shift form for this, given we more had your other half in mind."

Sam took a step back as Danny looked at him and switched form again, the ghostly echo returning to his voice and the faint glow too. _So, they do want to make him a commander._ She immediately remembered their discussion just a short time after the Disasteroid was over. How she was afraid that he would be off to the stars, and she would never see him. Danny had told her that he intended her to be with him the whole way, but would he be in control of that?

The politician walked up to him and shook Danny's hand. "Pleasure to meet you, young man. Now, I believe you heard the news?"

"Yes," Danny answered. "I'm one of the candidates for leading a task force to protect the GCN here against things like what just happened here and across the Pacific."

"Correct, and it is my pleasure to be the one to offer you the task of leading Task Force Raven, which will be composed of local authorities working in tandem to protect this network while the decision of what shall be done with it is made." The politician was beaming like it was the best break of his career. _Now where do I recognize him from? County government or something? shouldn't it be one of our state senators or something for this kind of thing?_ Sam wondered as he continued.

"Should it remain or should its fate require, the task will likely extend beyond the initial anticipation. We have the paperwork inside for you to sign."

"What will be expected of me?" Danny asked. "I'm sorry, but I want to know more details of what I'm being asked to do."

"It is likely that you will have to find alternative schooling, as you will be expected to oversee the defenses of all remaining GCN sites and regularly meet with other leaders to plan it out. You may also be called on for hearings regarding the Task Force's actions should they come into question, and other duties associated with command."

"_Military_ command," Danny added.

"Yes, though not on behalf of the United States, much to some of my colleague's disappointment."

"And I basically have to leave everything behind to do this." Danny retorted with a vague gesture of his hand towards the area, and Sam noticed Tucker glancing around awkwardly as the two realized he meant Amity Park... his _home_.

"Unfortunately, it is likely that you will not be here often, no." The politician was growing worried, Sam realized he was sweating as he came to the same conclusion Danny had said he reached.

"I'm sorry, Mister?..."

"Representative Mallard."

"Right." Danny said as he took a moment to compose himself so his tone was firm yet not antagonistic. "I'm sorry, Representative Mallard, but I have to decline. I'm happy to help out Task Force Raven and help make sure this network doesn't get abused, but I'm only a few weeks shy of turning fifteen and I'm not even a stellar student. I don't have the qualifications for this job other than my powers."

Sam was pretty sure that the drop of a feather could have been heard if Danny had not shifted back to Fenton again. Here was Danny Phantom, world savior, hero, and a guy with more than enough fans to go around, rejecting a position of authority. _Man, that's gotta be a smack in the face. For a politician, that's the _reward_ for doing good things._ More cynically, she realized as she caught the predatory grins on the two GIW agents, it could be spun as spurning responsibility. She shook her head. _Morons can be morons, he stated exactly why he is not taking the job, why he's not suited for it, and he's still willing to help out._

"Y... you are certain?" Mallard stuttered, composing himself as best he could as if his dream chance to shine had been flushed into the Ghost Zone.

"I'm certain. I might be able to take on some powerful ghosts, but that doesn't mean I can lead an organization." Danny answered firmly. "I'm glad to help in any way I can, but not as a guy leading from an armchair. That's not where I can do the most good for everyone."

"I... very well." Mallard said. "If you're sure, then I will send your answer up the chain and we will consider another candidate."

Danny nodded slowly and offered his hand, "Thank you, then, Representative Mallard, for hearing me out." Mallard took it and shook it tentatively before they parted ways. Danny walked towards Sam and Tucker and shrugged. "Come on, let's get going. We can dump Technus at my place, then get to the Nasty Burger."

Sam smiled. "Let's go, we can put in on my tab and you must be tired from going cross global."

XXXX

**Elmerton Apartment Complex, Amity Park**

"Dad?" Valerie asked as she walked in and found him pouring over the vanilla folder he had brought home last night. _Why is he pouring over it so much? It's not even looking like he's doing it for his job,_ she thought as she tried to figure it out. He was simply too worried in his looks for it to be run of the mill stuff.

"Valerie," her father said as he stood up too quickly, almost knocking the table over. "Please, come in. I need to talk to you about something."

Valerie slung her backpack next to the closet and walked over as he father set the folder down on the table and the two sat down on the couch. He looked at her quietly for a moment. "I know I've never approved of your ghost hunting, and I still think you're too young for it."

She glanced down, face slanted as she sighed softly. "I know, but I'm _good_ at it and we both know that Phantom isn't always around."

Her father smiled and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I know," he answered. "And I'm proud of you for sticking to your beliefs, even if I think it's foolish at your age."

That made her blush faintly in embarrassment, almost making her wish she had her old suit where the emotion would be hidden. Her father was good at that, sometimes, but he always meant well. "So, what's in this folder?" _Time to get to the point. It might be a long conversation._

"Yes..." her father said slowly. "Axion Labs is doing more lines of anti-ghost weapons, sort of like the ones we do for that government contract. Now, the normal _group_ we send them to are happy to test out the bugs under the condition of if being a whole new world of technology, but now we're getting contracts from other places and the normal users are not always forthcoming with lesser kinks."

_Considering they're happy to strafe the Nasty Burger's roof or fire missiles into an observatory, both when loaded with students, to get one suspected half-ghost, I can buy that._ Valerie bitterly mused as she considered the regular employer. "And I'm the only other ghost hunter they know who isn't already using Fenton gear."

"Essentially. They've been thorough with the contract too. It essentially breaks down to you using some of their gear along with the normal equipment you use," he glanced at her backpack even though he knew that ever since she got the new armor it was somehow bound to her in what might as well be hammerspace, "and then writing out reports on how it works so they can streamline."

Valerie nodded. "Yeah, sounds good. I'll admit, I'd like to use a more conventional weapon. The tech stuff is good, even if it was made by a ghost, but it is awkward sometimes and doesn't have the same feel." She paused and curled her lip with a sigh. "Though, my original gear was made by a _half_ ghost..." They were quiet for a moment before she looked at the contract. "Then again... using the Axion gear would mean that I'm getting some independence from schemes." She was starting to like the idea: use Axion gear and make a newer look for herself over time, and finally solidify herself as her own combatant. She was not opposed to using whatever tools were available, but as an ideal situation it appealed to her. "I'm guessing that you're going to talk me out of taking the contract?"

"Actually, I was going to let you read over it. I read through to be certain that there's no traps in the writing. If you want to take it on, I'm fine with you doing so. Though, you will have to leave the new ecto-guns here instead of taking them to school, obvious reasons." He shrugged, leaving Valerie to draw her own conclusions about the usual 'no guns' rules.

"Figures; school is where most attacks happen if they happen at all. Then again, they let Danny in still, and he's... well..."

"A walking armory of offensive powers?" her father offered with a slight grin. "To be fair, though, the reason they let him in still is a matter of this being completely outside any reasonable context. I mean, how can someone be half-ghost? Are they only half dead or something?"

Whatever clever quip Valerie had was lost when she suddenly realized the implications. _Wait. Half dead?_ Was Danny, ever since whatever had given him his powers, essentially an undead _thing_ walking around? It was obviously still the original Danny, he still acted normal save for his constant disappearances to 'go ghost' or whatever he called turning into Phantom, but what exactly happened to him? It was still too soon for her to understand the whole concept; she just figured that Danielle was some sort of rare mutation...

_Danielle?_ Valerie suddenly found herself with more unanswered questions than she thought she would have. Danielle could change form just like Danny, and she even went by a shortened name that sounded exactly the same and knew Danny. _Okay, Danny's too young for it to be _that, _so it must be something else, and I got a feeling that 'cousin' talk was just their way of avoiding the actual relationship._ Experience told her that the answer was likely to be something which would seem utterly implausible if she did not know better.

"Valerie?" her father asked, cutting her thoughts short.

"Huh? Oh, sorry." She shrugged, "I just got drawn into thinking about the comment about 'half-dead', considering..."

"If you want some space..." he started to stand up when Valerie cut in.

"No, it's okay. We should probably finish with this first. When do they want an answer by?"

"Tomorrow would be best, they said, but they are willing to give you more time if you need it." He sat back down. "Though, given how there's a shortage of competent non-Fenton and non-government ghost hunters out there, I think they would give you some space if you want to think on it for longer."

Valerie nodded slowly. "Alright, I'll read over it, but for now, I think it's safe to write this down as a 'yes'. How're they paying?"

"Pretty much by the ghost fight and report, so it's more like an organized bounty than a per-hour, with one exception being coming in for demonstrations and lab testing. Though, if you end up with any more bits of ghost equipment like that armor, the director sounded like they were very interested in it."

Valerie nodded, "Yeah, I'll see if I can get any bits in, though if there's something in particular they want I can keep my eyes open." She picked up the folder, "Now, let's get through this. I don't have any homework, but I do have to get down to the Nasty Burger later for mascot duty."

XXX

**Nasty Burger, Amity Park**

"I have to say Danny, that was pretty impressive." Sam said as she took a bite out of her veggie burger. She and Danny were next to each other while Tucker was across from them. "Telling off the politician with all those GIW troopers and tanks there. I almost expected them to try and force you into the job."

Danny shrugged with a smile, "Well, hey, even politicians know that you can't win some fights, and the GIW have lost so many times that I think they're starting to believe the fans' own myths."

"Speaking of fans," Tucker said, "how's the mail been?"

"Stuffed full." He shook his head in amusement, "My parents actually set up another whole mailbox for all the fan mail. I tried to connect it to a recycling bin so I wouldn't have to deal with it, but Jazz insisted I at least look through it."

"That's probably a good idea." Sam pointed out, "It could be important, like someone trying to contact you for something serious."

"Most of it is just the usual fan mail. It was heartwarming to read at first, especially the stuff from those elementary school kids I saved from the Fright Knight last week. But then I saw the stuff from Paulina and some of the other more rabid fans..." He shivered as he remembered the details. Far too much information and he was not even interested.

"Now you know what fictional characters feel like in regards to shippers," Sam answered with a smirk. "Next thing you know, there'll be a cartoon of you."

Danny thought back to the comic books he had seen during the Reality Gauntlet incident and what he had seen in them when he landed in the stand and cringed. "Yeah, that'll be painful."

"Or worse," Tucker said with a smirk, "Fanfiction."

"Ninety percent of it is garbage anyways," Sam pointed out in amusement. "Sturgeon's law, though I doubt that'll happen. This is reality."

"Yup. A reality that's pretty much had conventional science dumped on, but reality none-the-less." Danny leaned back, downing a quarter of his soda in one long sip. "So, how's it been for you guys? We've never really talked about your dodges, and Jazz is somehow immune to it despite being my sister."

"Paulina and company seriously think I'm willing to be part of the 'in' group." Sam flatly stated with no amusement in her voice. "They basically just think I'm a way they can reach you, but we stick together often enough that it's hard for them to pick me out."

"Herd immunity, huh?" Tucker said with a grin. "Well, I don't have a lot of problem, though the geeks definitely hold me in higher regard. Not as high as you, but some of it rubs off."

"What's 'it'? Reputation?" Danny asked with a grin.

"Pretty much." The technogeek shrugged as he idly started meddling with his PDA. "So, the parents finished the portal? I'm assuming that's how you took care of Technus."

"Yeah," Danny answered with a nod. "Fully repaired and all the controls are on the outside." He lowered his voice, even though the Nasty Burger was still empty. For now. "I'm planning on bringing the map back to Frostbite once we get home since we won't need it. Besides..." he glanced both ways again, "My parents mentioned some long odds."

"On what?" Sam asked uncomfortably.

"My odds when I went in there. Of actually surviving that much ecto-energy..."

XX

Sam sat there, blinking as a thought that had laid uncomfortably in the back of her mind reared its ugly head at Danny's words. Fortunately, she was able to recognize it. _Come on, Manson, you've gone through this a hundred times. Yes, the odds were long, but we all thought it was inert and had no idea that the crazy tech worked back then. Far as you knew, it was perfectly safe._ "Danny, why are you so worried about it? You survived, you _thrived_. I'm pretty sure that if it had been me who had that happen, I might not have lasted this long."

"Or me." Tucker added in, "I mean, we can take care of ourselves, sure, but we didn't have the experience with ghosts you had. You at least had an idea of what we were looking at from all your parent's ramblings."

Danny shrugged. "I dunno, guys. I thought I was really lucky to have lasted myself through those first run-ins while I was learning. I mean, they weren't really trying to stun me, they were trying to _kill_ me." He curled his lips. "Well, fully kill me instead of me being half-dead or whatever being a halfa means."

Sam shook her head, trying to fight back the part of her brain that kept trying to tell her to shut up when she was on a roll. But rather than telling her to shut up, it was trying to make her realize that she had put him through everything that had happened since the accident... and put him through the accident more than once because of a foolish moment when a powerful ghost was running around. _How many times have I nearly gotten him killed? Or Tucker?_ Memories flooded back quickly. The Lunch Lady, first encounter... Desiree and her having to force Danny into the pain again.

_You wanted him to use his powers more than he did..._ the same voice nagged. _For him to take a stand when he wanted to stay quiet. Then you turned around and chided him for taking a stand against Dash..._ The memories of Danny's payback during Pariah Dark's conquest and the Poindexter incident played back, especially her reaction.

_That's different,_ she forced back as Tucker made a comment about it not mattering if Danny was half-dead or just crossed with another species. _Going after Dash like that was a serious risk, he could of been exposed and that was when everyone thought he was a villain!_

She pushed the line of thought aside before a response came. She knew she was no paragon of morality, and she had come to realize that trying to get the school to go vegetarian was a bad idea after it lured the Lunch Lady out of the Ghost Zone. But this was getting too uncomfortable; she was _not_ a controlling shrew like Paulina was, or what Valerie used to be before she had matured. _And Danny's the topic at hand, not myself._

"So, Sam, what do you think?" Danny asked, giving her the perfect break she needed.

"Honestly, does it matter if you're half-dead or whatever explanation you want? You're still you, and that's enough for me." She shrugged. "But, if you really want to know my theory, I'm with the hybrid. You're both, but at the heart it's you. I mean, look at a lot of our enemies. Still the same personality traits as they had alive, if what we've dug up is right. So maybe the most dead way of looking at this is you're basically a ghost that hasn't fully died, but you can change between which is more dominant. The most live is the same, but assuming you're human first."

He nodded slowly. "That's sort of what I ran on, assuming human first, but I have a feeling that I need to find out the nature of it, and soon. My parents seem really willing to find out, though not enough to dissect me."

"So, no more molecule by molecule?" Tucker asked.

"Nope. Though, they did pull it out once to make sure I changed the Ecto-Filterator on the portal... though more in the 'you're grounded' kind of way and I doubt they were serious."

"Habit?" Sam offered, shaking her head ever so slightly at the thought of the look on his parents' faces as they started going on about molecule by molecule again only to remember that they were talking about dissecting their own son.

"Probably. Didn't help that I had some genuine goofs to back up the assumption I was a bad guy, like Freakshow's control, Walker making it look like I was attacking Mayor Montez, the whole mess of last Christmas..." Danny shivered, as if he realized how bad it could have been had he been revealed during that time period instead of when he was hailed as a hero.

_Yeah, keeping the wraps on powers then was a good idea. I'm just glad no one tried to use the past stuff on him; that's serious blackmail material._ Tucker, however, commented it aloud. "So, Danny, how'd you explain that to your parents?"

"Told them the truth. Mind control staff, Walker overshadowing everyone, a troll faced author, the whole list." He smirked. "It helps that they actually knew the stuff, I don't think that I'd have nearly as much luck explaining that to a senate subcommittee."

"And that they rectified the laws to compensate for the risk of overshadowing. Not a lot of people can even start resisting it." Sam said with folded arms. "Sad thing is, stuff like that makes everyone wearing a Specter Deflector a _good_ idea."

"Until Technus finds a bypass, or some other tech ghost," Tucker pointed out. "I have been playing with one of my backups to see if I could make it not shock Danny."

"How's that going?" Sam asked, being unaware of that little side project. She thought he was just playing videogames with Danny for a little boy time.

"Badly. I still have the burns from the last round." Danny cut in. "But, if my parents can get the house to recognize my ecto-signature, that might be the best..." he paused suddenly and glanced down, a small wisp of his breath visible. Sam immediately tensed, reflexes finally honed to respond to these threats quickly as she turned in time to grab Danny and pull him to the ground as small group of skeletal ghosts fired ghostly arrows into the Nasty Burger. Tucker had managed to dive as well, though his red beret was caught and pinned into the pillar next to the nasty sauce in the back...

Sam almost voided herself as she remembered how Danny described the full explosion that had lead to Dan Phantom's existence and looked at Danny, who nodded grimly. "Get everyone out of here," he ordered as his eyes started glowing green. "I'm going ghost!"

Danny changed quickly to Phantom and leapt out to confront the ghosts while Sam and Tucker pushed themselves back up to get to work.

"You know," Tucker asked as they started running, dodging ghostly arrows and javelins as they ducked between the vacant booths, "I have no idea how the Nasty Sauce is FDA approved."

"I have no idea how the heck that stuff is _legal at all_!" Sam added as they hurried to where one of the waiters was hiding to get to work convincing people to get out of the way in case it blew up.

Fortunately for them, Valerie had arrived and helped them convince Ervin 'Third Degree' Burns, the assistant manager, to officially vacate the building until the place calmed down while Danny let loose on the ghosts. Sam had to admit, watching Danny fight from a distance was at the same time terrifying and bewildering.

It was terrifying for the danger he was in as a result of the combat, as Danny found as one of the arrows caught him in the chest and green ectoplasm came from where he had been hit. It was not a full impalement shot, it had only cut across the side, but his scream spoke a thousand words and pictures, many of which Sam had heard and witnessed in her nightmares.

Yet, it was bewildering because there was just something awe inspiring about, after dodging a sword wielding skeleton's slash, Danny landing a distance away from the group and charging his ghost rays from a crouched position, blasting back the group of ghost skeletons with several blasts as they charged before going into melee combat as they closed in, grappling a spearman's spear and shoving it into another skeleton before freezing the spearman and shattering him and using the spear as a makeshift javelin to impale two of the archers as they hurried to grab more arrows. By this point, Sam and Tucker had gotten everyone clear of the Nasty Burger and Danny was pretty much done, quickly popping back into the restaurant and back out with the Fenton Thermos, sucking up the debris as the ghost skeletons tried to pull themselves back together only to be condensed into the Thermos.

With the threat gone, things had returned to normal, Danny switched back to human form, used the Thermos to remove the arrows, and the vats of stupidly explosive sauce were once again safe, along with the city block.

XX

**Two Hours Later**

**FentonWorks, Amity Park**

"Okay; I have the map, Mom and Dad are out on a little patrol run to make sure no one else showed up..." Danny nodded to himself as he made sure the map was secure on his belt and nodded to Jazz. "I'm ready to go."

"You sure you need to return the map?" Jazz asked with folded arms. The two were standing in the lab in front of the open portal.

"I'm sure." Danny answered, "It's too big a risk to leave it here. It can get stolen from where it normally is, but that left old fruit loops weak enough that it wasn't hard to beat him and it took him long enough we were able to respond." He glanced towards the portal and thought of Danielle, and what he had intended on using the map for briefly yesterday. "Besides, the only reason Frostbite left it in my care was so I could get into the Ghost Zone if I needed to until the portal was working."

"Alright. Be careful, you vented a lot of ghosts down there earlier." Jazz was genuinely concerned, though with how unfamiliar she was with the Ghost Zone it made sense to Danny that she would be a lot more worried than he was.

"Hey, I got friends there. Besides, the map can easily take me to Frostbite's..." he paused as he realized what was about to happen with the map. "Oh crud..."

The next thing he knew, he was hurtling through the Ghost Zone to the Realm of the Far Frozen well beyond his normal top speed, screaming along the way and passing one of Walker's paddy wagons, the two ghost cops within spitting out their (Ghost Zone equivalent of) coffee before he left them behind in the ectoplasmic dust.

XX

**End Chapter**

**Epilogue:**

Meanwhile in Amity Park, Jazz was sitting in the kitchen as the news played.

_"In response to an incident earlier today and the declination by resident half-ghost Danny Phantom, the UN Security Council has chosen General Oliver Parker to lead the force. The Australian general has accepted this duty and Task Force Raven has been created. Volunteer units from UN member nations have already begun organizing and begun outfitting for the task of taking jurisdiction."_

_Well,_ Jazz decided as she turned the page in her psychology textbook, _at least it wasn't the Guys in White._ Danny had been gone for half an hour, but from how quiet things were she doubted that he had run into trouble. In fact, she suspected that the Far Frozen were trying to get him to stick around for a surprise party based on what she had been told of them by Sam and Tucker.

Unbeknownst to her, the Far Frozen were in a confused mix of hailing the great one, and remembering his terrible aim was with his ice powers.

**XX**

**Author's Notes:**

_So, this is the start of another little project I'm messing around with. Namely, trying my own hand at a 'Season 4' of Danny Phantom. That said, I've looked at my previous works and realized that my problem was juggling them in one story, pretty much an epic in length. Number Two, one of my Kim Possible fanfics, worked best because it was self contained and I wrapped up the plot instead of hitting writer's block for the next 'daily' thing. Epic as writing the 'epic' type is and it's easier to keep continuity, I've found that it has a lot of demands that I never see through. So, my plan is to post it 'episode by episode', so that if I suffer from such block I am not leaving another carcass of a fic in the archives of Fanfiction dot Net. It's just not a series of fics continued beyond the last one, in the event that happens._

_I will say, though, that Danny Phantom as a series holds a number of interesting characters, many of whom have potential hidden depths that could have been explored had the series not ended somewhat abruptly and without time to really solve all the plot threads there were. And, it is also a world with a lot of consistency, which is a great boon for those seeking to fill in the rest of the gaps in the setting's version of natural laws because less time needs to be spent explaining dozens of variances. And each character has interesting dynamics to play with. For example, Sam is well meaning as an activist, but walks into her own hypocrisy. Valerie is the pawn who no longer wants to be a pawn, but is determined enough to accept the tools of a pawn to get the job done. Lancer is still stern as hell even with extenuating circumstances like Danny being half-ghost and (if his comment from Urban Jungle was serious) technically deputized as a legal defender of the city, but he is trying to be fair to all his students, and so on. _

_Minor bit; I originally called the white GIW agent as "Juliet Mike Romero" (real name Jason Michael Reznov), mostly for comedy with the NATO military alphabet. Then I re-watched 'Livin Large' and he was referred to as 'Operative O' when he was ordered to fire the missile into the Ghost Zone. I suppose that'll make things less embarrassing for the poor white shirt. No need for a scene of a Team Phantom member laughing at the name as he insists that it is just a codename. Also, you would assume they would have more than 26 agents, so doing the all initials thing works better._


End file.
